


The Writers' Conference Where The Second Half of the X-Files' Season Seven Was Planned, As It Happened In My Head

by PlaidAdder



Series: X-Files Meta [19]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Brand X, Fight Club - Freeform, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Writing, all things, chimera, en ami, first person shooter, hollywood a d, je souhaite, season seven of the x-files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2116134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is sort of how I imagine it went down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Writers' Conference Where The Second Half of the X-Files' Season Seven Was Planned, As It Happened In My Head

**So, here’s how I imagine it kind of went down. Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz are all sitting around a big conference table. We join the conversation already in progress.**

CARTER: …so the thing is, once Mulder gives up on looking for Samantha, we got nothing going on as far as a story arc goes until the abduction at the end.

DUCHOVNY: Well, doesn’t Gillian’s…I mean…we start sleeping together, right, in—

CARTER: (waving a hand) No you don’t.

DUCHOVNY: Uh, I’m pretty sure we do…

CARTER: I told her she had to make that ambiguous.

DUCHOVNY: (flipping throuh script) It specifies quite clearly that Mulder is naked in the first scene—

CARTER: (not hearing him) Don’t want to ruin the mystery. This show will run forever—

DUCHOVNY: Not with me it won’t.

CARTER: Fine, whatever, I don’t need you, but my point is, we have to be able to string the shippers along for at least another ten seasons.

(VINCE GILLIGAN begins hurriedly crossing things out in a script sitting in front of him)

CARTER: Gilligan! (VINCE winces; he is very tired of this joke) What are you doing?

GILLIGAN: Um…nothing…just…introducing a little…ambiguity…

CARTER: Into what?

GILLIGAN: That genie thing I’ve been working on…you know…

CARTER: OK. OK good. That’s a nice script, Vince, you take your time with it, God knows they don’t grow on trees. So. We got genies, we got that—what, that promo for  _C.O.P.S._ they talked to you about—

GILLIGAN: It’s not just a promo for C.O.P.S. It’s a postmodern play with form and genre which deconstructs the conventions of reality—

CARTER: Sure, Gilligan.

GILLGAN: For the last fucking time, Chris, it’s “Vince.” You’re not Skipper and I’m not your little buddy, OK?

CARTER: We’re starting production on the Gibson script next week—(DUCHOVNY lets out an exclamation of outrage) David? You have something to add?

DUCHOVNY: Didn’t we…I mean I thought we told him to…feed that thing to the…

CARTER: Shooting begins tomorrow.

DUCHOVNY: But I remember you—you sat right there, Chris, I remember this, and you said, look, it’s no worse than ‘Alpha,’ and I said, actually, I don’t think even Jeffrey Bell has ever produced a bigger pile of dog sh—

CARTER: —and I said all right maybe, but it will be unbelievably cheap to shoot. So we’re shooting it. And then there’s that thing by the new guys from Harsh Realm—

DUCHOVNY: What new thing?

CARTER: Cigarettes. Toxic cigarettes. Mulder gets exposed to toxic secondhand smoke. Beetle eggs in your alveoli. Maggots hatching in your bronchial tubes and being sucked out of you by a giant tube, David, you almost die, you’ll love it.

DUCHOVNY: Did you say…maggots?

CARTER: And David A’s working on some shit with ravens and mirrors, don’t ask me cause I don’t get it myself, but the point is that once Bill turns in his script—

DUCHOVNY: Bill?

CARTER: Bill. You know. Bill Davis. Cancer man.

DUCHOVNY: He’s writing one?

CARTER: Sure. Everyone’s writing one. Only Mitch is having to rewrite his cause there was this time-traveling phone booth and legal is going head to head with the BBC , so that won’t be done in time, but Braidwood’s in his office as we speak working on something involving a rocketship, hookers, and JFK’s cryogenically frozen head—

GILLIGAN: (desperately) I have another idea.

CARTER: What?

GILLIGAN: Voodoo. (Everyone groans) 

CARTER: We’ve done voodoo.

GILLIGAN: But I mean like Appalachian voodoo.

SHIBAN: We’ve done voodoo.

GILLIGAN: And like super-gory.

DUCHOVNY: We’ve done voodoo.

GILLIGAN: With poppets!

SPOTNITZ: We’ve done voodoo.

GILLIGAN: And a sassy lady at the occultiana store who tells Mulder all about the voodoo stuff—

CARTER: Like the astrologer in that one with the two girls who make everything go all crazy--

GILLIGAN: Yeah. And we can finally do that thing we always talked about, you know, that thing from Silence of the Lambs where Scully—Clarice, you know—is trying to shoot the guy but she can’t see him and she’s all shaky and terrified—

CARTER: I like it. John, Frank, you help him out with that, he’s very busy. (SPOTNITZ and SHIBAN look at each other with dread.) But that still leaves us with two weeks to fill. So. Ideas? Anybody?

[crickets]

CARTER: Gilligan? Anything else in your coconut, little buddy?

GILLIGAN (getting up with a growl of rage): Fuck you, Chris. Come on, boys.

(SPOTNITZ and SHIBAN get up, flanking GILLIGAN on each side. GILLIGAN snaps his fingers and points. All three march out in a V formation. The door slams. DUCHOVNY and CARTER look at each other.)

CARTER: I’m going to need a script from you, David.

DUCHOVNY: But we’re already shooting—

CARTER: Like, tomorrow.

DUCHOVNY: I’m done, Chris, I got nothing!

CARTER: Look. Just sling together some kind of crap that will get us from one end of the hour to the other. I don’t care what you put in it. Dancing zombies, secret magical ancient religious texts, Abbie Hoffman, the Walrus, hallucinations, a gratuitous cameo for your wife, Mitch Pileggi in a bubble bath, Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, I don’t fucking care, all right? If you make it funny nobody’ll give a shit.

DUCHOVNY: Well if all you need is a bunch of lame in-jokes strung together into some kind of half-assed parody with no premise and no plot, why don’t YOU write it?

CARTER: (Brandishing the half-finished script to “Fight Club”) I ALREADY AM!

**And scene.**


End file.
